We all want active watchers; people that comment on our deviations and add them to their favorites. That get involved in whatever projects we have going on, polls we post or anything else. Active watchers are awesome and we're lucky to have them. But are you an active watchee? Some people return watches, some people don't. However you do it, a big key to have active watchers for most of us is to be active in return! But what is an active watchee?

Being an active watchee isn't really that hard, it's just boils down to being involved with your watchers and being part of their deviantART experience too. They watched you for whatever reasons they did. Let it be your artwork, your community involvement, your bribery... whatever it is, they watched you for a reason, reasons we shall appreciate because we are respectable people after all! So without further babbling or .gifs,

5 Steps to Being an Active Watchee

1. Stay regular

This is probably one of the most important parts; nobody wants to watch someone they find amazing to either have them never post again or flood their inbox with 192 posts a day. Life happens and deviants disappear; there's nothing I can really add to this, but if they watch you they're probably looking forward to seeing more of your work; so as long as you're here, try to post something fairly regularly [once a week, month, etc.] however it works out for you. Of course they want to see your work! You're amazing and they want to see your awesomeness come straight to their inbox, but they don't want to see 164 devaitions, 17 journals, 22 polls... you see my point all within an hour of each other. Pace yourself, if you have a lot, post a few a day. If you have a huge set you want to show them, post a few of your best and then upload to something like a blog, flickr, facebook, etc. so they can go see ALL of them. If I open my messages and see that many, I'm more likely to delete all of them. If there's 5 I'll open a few and if I really like them I will go to whatever link there is to see all of them. [who knows, maybe you'll get a follower, contact, liker? whatever on your page as well!]

2. Value them.

This may seem like an obvious one - but I see a lot of people skip it. Appreciate your watchers; if they take time to comment on your work, journals, etc. respond to them. Most of us aren't receiving 100+ comments/submission and of those most of them probably aren't long winded comments but often more simple, it doesn't take a lot to type out a thank you.

That being said thanking for +fav/watches is completely up to you. I don't really know many who gets offended either way on being thanked or not.

3. Help & inspire them!

Share information with them: if you find some great tutorial, interesting challenge/idea, awesome contest, etc. Share with them - help them learn, experiment and grow as artists themselves. If you go to their page and see their working on a project, contest, etc. offer to help them. Let it be just donating a llama to winners, promoting it in a journal/poll/group/etc. - even participating in it. Or if they're looking for feedback on their work, even just a small constructive comment or information [such as a tutorial] for someone looking to improve their work or are unsure of a piece or how to fix it can be extremely helpful. It doesn't take a lot of time - and really, it benefits you both.

4. Engage them

This means more than just responding to your comments or thanking for faves or watches. The moment they watch you, you've become more than another member of deviantART, the beginning sparks of a relationship have been lit and now it's time to get to the fireworks, you are both now a part of the others deviantART experience! Now; how can you communicate with them more than just a quick comment or favorite? Journals, polls and conversational deviations are great ways to do this! Here are a few examples of getting involved with your watchers.

You know those sometimes annoying tags everyone does every so often? DO ONE! Answer the 10 questions, say 20 things about yourself, whatever it is... do one that offers a chat with those who read your journal [primarily your watchers!], but ask them questions too! "If you don't want to make a journal, feel free to post in the comments" or "now tell me at least 3 things about yourself, etc. This opens the doorways to let them know something about you and you to learn about them!

Conversation deviations; I know, when I wrote this down at first even I thought "what is that even!?"... but here's what I like to think it could be. No matter what the art is; say you take a photo of your first camera or write about your inspiration... it's just a regular deviation! But you know those little artist comment boxes most of us use for nothing, 3 words, or a quick description of what this is... ask questions! "What gives you nostalgia?" or "What inspires you this way?"... and BAM! conversation... we all have memories, inspiration and something about ourselves we can relate to.

Journals & polls: what do you write about when you post journals and polls? Does it involve your watchers? Journals can be used to spark conversations as well, if you write a personal journal you can talk with them about the topics you wrote about. Polls are an awesome way to get opinions, from asking specific questions to things like "how's your day?" or "do you think...." and so on.

5. Finally, give back to them.

Sometimes people watch back, sometimes they don't. Again this is a person choice, but regardless you can go to their gallery from time to time to leave comments/favorites. I've seen a lot of people who do watcher features, which I think is an awesome way to give back to those who have been supporting you. Giving back to them isn't all that hard, or time consuming. Another thing I see a lot is a watcher giveaways - let it bee 50 points or 500 points, art commissions, features, etc. These things, even if they're small are often appreciated by your watchers. It doesn't have to be something massive and shiny - but give back to those who have supported, encouraged, and motivated you by doing the same things from time to time. It will make everyone's experience here a little better.

Great article! I think anyone who doesn't appreciate their watchers needs their head read, quite frankly. Sadly only a few people I watch interact with their fans on any sort of meaningful level. I know it can become difficult when you become extremely popular but I still think you need to at least try.

Agreed - like I mentioned I understand some people get a lot of messages so they don't always respond to most of them... and there are some I see that do respond to the ones with questions and such. And notes as well.

This is all really good advice and I appreciate the time you put into it, but it does not always work I have only been here a year so I do not have a ton of watchers like a lot of people, but I always take time to respond to comments, notes, etc. from my watchers but I rarely get the same treatment in return... I think I may be venting a little so feel free to ignore at this point!

For awhile whenever I hit another thousand pageviews I would write a thank you journal and send out a note to all my watchers asking them what they liked about my work, what they would like to see more of, and I would ask how they were doing and invite them to chat so we could get to know each other more. Every single time I would get a grand total of two responses at maximum from the same two people out of the 30 or more watchers I had at the time, so I gave up. I still write the journal, but it just seems like a huge waste of time to send all of my watchers a note only to have it be ignored.I always thank for faves and watches unless they spefically say not to, I respond to all comments including for faves and watches I give, and I try my best to be friendly and approachable.For the people I watch in return, I usually comment on most things that come my way, but again they rarely take time to return the favor. It is really frustrating since one of the only reasons I am here is to receive feedback from my target audience in order to improve DX

This article isn't about getting watchers, it's about being active with those that already watch you.

Honestly - it takes a while to find your niche on dA; and it's not easy getting a ton of watchers, it takes time to build up a following, not just here but anywhere - a few things I would suggest just from looking at your page and reading your stats.

your work isn't submitted to any groups & you're only a member of 7

you watch 64 people while 38 watch you [this isn't actually a bad percentage ratio either to be honest.]

That being said - I would suggest joining some more groups & submitting to them. Groups can be extremely helpful in finding and sharing your art with a variety of artists with similar interests, skill levels and styles. I highly recommend following groups such as ProjectComment which can aid in providing constructive comments, and for your writing try GrammarNaziCritiques for in depth critiques. I also highly recommend joining groups such as projecteducate [which this article was written for] because there are many articles posted that can be quite helpful in being active on dA, learning new things art wise and how to use the site and gain information on creating art. Some others are DevNews which brings a lot of news [including projects, contests, challenges, etc. you can participate in; some of which my challenge you or help you try new things and learn from] as well as other things.

As for getting watchers specifically you can try #GetWatchers which is view for view with other deviants. No promise of +favs or watches, but it helps if they're seeing you work. Also - the thumbshare forum and share your work there.

Being active in the community is key to getting active watchers, I can honestly say most of my watchers aren't very active either, as much as I try to get them to be. Ultimately most people give more than they receive; but you can still receive quite a bit if you work at it. It does take some time. Activity vs. Community is an article I wrote a few months ago about being active on here. Also try How to get Noticed on deviantART and 5 Tips to Gaining and Maintaining Watchers. There's a ton more awesome articles in Awesome Articles for Everyone and this blog. Also tomorrow I'll be posting another journal on how to share your artwork, so perhaps that one will help you as well

I hope maybe that helps, if you have any questions feel free to ask I'll be happy to answer the best I can.

Good pieces of advice, and lot's of community-love in this article. Well done

You might wanna note, though, that this kind of behavior is hard to keep up with when you pass 1000+ watchers.Or at least; that's my experience.Most people that have 1000+ people watching them, don't know all of their watchers. But while people occasionally get offended over this fact, it's only logical. 1000 people is a whole damn lot

That's why I mentioned most of us I know there are some people that are getting 100+ comments on everything they post and it's hard to respond to everything. Also I'm not saying this is what everyone needs to do nor that anybody should expect it, just an option

I think more people should do it, actually.It would make DA a friendlier place

I used to be a very inactive member.A little over a year ago, I tried to be a bit more active. Give llama's, help people, make tutorials, etc. And I have to say; it worked like crazy.Nowadays this account is very busy ^^

Excellent article. I can attest to #2; I know that I, for one, am MUCH more likely to leave a comment (as opposed to ing and running) when I know that the artist replies to comments. If the artist doesn't respond, I usually assume they don't even bother reading the comments.

I've felt like that a lot too - I mean if they are one of those artists that gets 100+ comments/deviation I understand it more, for example I see some that will respond to the longer comments with more depth other than "pretty". I can understand that, and those that do that often say thanks for the comments, +favs, etc. in the artists comment box.

But those that leave their box empty and only have 3 or 4 comments not responded too, I often feel like they just go ignored myself. I've gotten over it a lot in recent years, but when I first joined dA I felt awfully offended by that

Exactly! And especially when one or more comments has a question (that isn't answered in the description). I don't really feel offended by it (unless I was one of the ones asking questions), I just don't feel guilty for ing and running.

I tend to feel that way too. I wonder why would you not read comments though? That's like inviting people to speak and then ignoring them. Unless they're a very popular deviant, then I just assume that they're busy or something.

I know, right? I understand if you get hundreds of comments a day , but if you only have five or so and you don't even respond to any questions (assuming the questions were not answered in the description), it just seems... rude, in my opinion.

Awesome, I'm glad this is getting so much attention. Yes, I have very little watchers in comparison to others and this has inspired to me a bit more social with my active watchers. We can improve upon are work together!